by Sandra Byrd
“Did you come alone, then?” His voice indicated his surprise. “They are not accompanying you?”
“No, indeed. Here is my card.” I handed it to him, indicating my professional legitimacy, and his face lightened. “I’m certain you understand my need for discretion,” I said.
“Yes. And I shall hail a hansom cab.” He went to his till and took out some more money, then handed it to me. “I thought you was with them, and they are bad men. If you were, then the goods might have been stolen no matter your story about your mother.” He tucked my card in his cash drawer.
And yet you bought them anyway. I dared not say that aloud. He would not then be so accommodating in assisting me.
I had the cab leave me off a few blocks from my home to save a pence. As I walked, I sensed and heard footsteps following me once more. It could surely not be the ruffians from the pawnshop.
Perhaps it was those men who had accosted my uncle. Predators were known to lie in wait for prey, if required.
I raced home and, once inside, fast locked the door behind me.
The dinner was to be held at the museum itself and had a dual purpose: raise funds and encourage the wealthy to part with some of their treasures to make the South Kensington the most expansive and complete museum in all Britain, if not the world.
Lady Charlotte and her husband had kindly agreed to escort me to both the dinner and the event which followed; I would meet Mr. Clarkson there, of course. The Schreibers’ carriage was closed tight against the November wind, and Charlotte had brought blankets to spread across our laps. I slipped my hands inside a fur muff which had been a Christmas gift some years earlier, plunging them deeper till my left knuckles knocked my right.
There were better than a hundred of us—perhaps two hundred—eating in a grand dining room within the museum; the dinner was overseen by Mr. and Mrs. Herberts, generous patrons of the museum. I saw Mr. Clarkson, too, from across the room. He smiled at me encouragingly. I suspected his conversations on behalf of the firm were going well.
“Do you know William Morris has agreed to decorate this dining room?” Charlotte’s face conveyed her excitement. I knew she was a great fan of Mr. Morris, as was I. “He’s planning to call it the Green Dining Room. We shall come back together, I’m certain of it, and see what he’ll do.” She squeezed my hand. Her friendship had come to mean so much to me in such a short time. She was not a mother, per se, nor an equal friend, like Marguerite. Somewhere, perhaps, in between.
Many of the guests spoke well of the late Lord Lydney. He had been a friend to many of the collectors, and they praised the things he had purchased and which my father had assisted in locating. Did they know him only superficially and therefore had been tricked? Or had I seen the baron in the wrong light? Until the discovery of Arthur’s pieces, I might have thought so. Perhaps they had been hoodwinked as well.
Dinner was served on plain white porcelain, which was very daring indeed as most hostesses used highly decorated plates. Mrs. Herberts had no doubt planned the menu to be as artistic and impressive as possible; the food needed nothing but a fine bone foil. The serving table stretched nearly as long as the room. Platters of lobster, pink as winter cheeks, were placed next to ramekins of rich butter as creamy as the clover the yielding cows had dined upon. Fruit long out of season had been tucked into French pastries. Silver spoons rested on pearl platters, each overflowing with black seeds of caviar which popped with satisfyingly briny goodness when placed between the front teeth. Jellies. Sweetmeats. Jowls of beef. It was endless. Above the serving table was an Italian master’s fine portrait of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who believed that pleasure was the absence of suffering.
After dinner, Mr. Herberts proposed a toast to the museum, spoke about the current needs, and explained how individuals could support the common effort. He looked directly at me and smiled. I held my head high and smiled back.
Lord Parham turned toward me and scowled.
As I turned away from him, I felt, more than saw, eyes upon me from across the room. A sense of forewarning caused the fine hairs on the back of my neck to rise.
I looked up.
It was my mother.
As I met her gaze, she quickly turned toward her dining companion. I looked down at my plate; my appetite had fled along with, I could sense, the blood in my face.
I had seen her but once in a dozen years, at a distance, outside the opera. I was not, after all, likely to mingle in the clique in which she circulated. She was still beautiful, more beautiful than I could surely say of myself; she always said I favored my father, which I took to mean I was at a distinct disadvantage.
We were dismissed to wander the galleries nearby, which had been lit by lamplight and especially opened for the event. I stood and walked away from the table quickly, not trusting my voice or emotions to remain steady until I’d had a chance to recover. The warren of open rooms extended in all directions. I wandered down a hallway which looked rather less crowded, hoping for some peace. I suppose there was a part of me which hoped she would follow me, seek me out, strike up a conversation, and express her regrets.
I ambled through the galleries pretending to look at the various pieces of art but truly trying to manage my thoughts and feelings. If she hadn’t left us, perhaps my father would not have married himself to his gin bottle; perhaps I would not be left alone to manage my uncle and his illness and our firm and the troubled currents I must navigate.
At the end of a long vestibule, I saw her in a nearly empty gallery. She spoke animatedly with a man. Her new husband? She’d been but a paramour until my father’s death, when she was freed to remarry. I did not know if she had. Her companion did not seem to respond to her with the enthusiasm she directed toward him.
Her sole piece of jewelry was a thin gold chain, and I became uncomfortably aware of the much richer jewel which graced my neck—hers. Her gown, upon focused inspection, looked quite thin and a bit dated. In spite of myself, I began to pity her just a little. Perhaps she was in dire straits? I recalled Marguerite’s comment. “Even the privileged have steep hills to climb.”
As I viewed her through the gallery, it struck me—I was also viewing her through the glass cases. She was an ornament—treasured but perhaps, judging by the man next to her, set aside to be dusted and shown off but on occasion?
I willed her to look at me, and she did. If she had indicated any friendliness, openness, or pleasure at seeing me, I would have approached her in the hope of a reconciliation. Instead, as she faced me and our gazes met once more, she glanced at my neck, scowled, and turned her back toward me definitively.
Had I not been dependent upon Charlotte to return me to my home, I would have fled. I am no one’s treasure.
Someone cleared his throat behind me, and I turned.
“Oh, Mr. Herberts, Mrs. Herberts.” I put on a calm false front. “Thank you for kindly inviting me this evening.”
Mr. Herberts properly introduced me to his wife and then asked, “Your Mr. Clarkson has left you alone?”
“Oh, I’m certain he’s nearby. Perhaps I should seek him out.”
Mrs. Herberts tucked her arm in mine. “We shall escort you.”
We wandered through the fine art gallery, and then Mrs. Herberts stopped at the ceramics room with its lovely display of Italian majolica.
“Look, dearest,” she said to her husband. “Such that you love.”
We passed an open room. “It’s sparsely populated, as you can see. Lydney’s armor would look very well in here,” Mr. Herberts said in a voice best saved for wooing.
I was certain that it had been the armor, and not the porcelain or furniture or even fine art, that drew the museum trustees to Lord Lydney’s collection. His pieces were vast and wide. Lorica hamata from the Roman legions. Steel-plated armor from the soldiers of medieval kings. Rare Japanese samurai cuirasses. The collection was invaluable, should someone choose to sell it, irreplaceable for display.
“It very well may,�
�� I said.
“The room would be named for Lydney,” he said, “with a prominent plaque thanking the highly recommended curation and care of Sheffield Brothers.”
At that, my eyes widened. I hadn’t expected that. All collectors, donors, and visitors would be made aware of our firm each time the collection was viewed.
“Would all of the pieces be on display?” I asked.
He laughed and shook his head. “Not permanently, of course. Many would be cataloged and stored—but available, should someone ask.”
Buried in a storeroom? Where no one might ever view them? I wasn’t certain what Lord Lydney, the deceased, might have thought of that.
“The armor would see plenty of light,” he reassured.
We soon drew near where Mr. Clarkson spoke with Mr. Denholm, one of Mr. Clarkson’s recent patrons, a friend of Harry’s father, and the wealthy owner of a chain of chemist shops. Mr. and Mrs. Herberts left to tend to their other guests, hoping, I suspected, that I was sufficiently won over. I did think how wonderful it would be to see the Lydney Collection magnificently displayed among these other pieces and my family’s name acknowledged and thanked.
I stood near, but not among, Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Denholm as they continued their discussion. Mr. Clarkson coughed and took a tiny nip from a paregoric bottle and then returned to the conversation. Shockingly, Mr. Denholm was speaking of how he had been sorting through donations to the museum and, on occasion, swapping a piece which had been donated with something from his own hoard.
I held my tongue, but my face must have expressed my utter disbelief. I could not believe that Lord Lydney would have agreed to have his collection donated to men who would rifle through it for their own profit and pleasure. He was a very possessive man.
“What is it, Miss Sheffield?” Mr. Denholm tried to cover his disdain with forced sweetness.
“Do the . . . do the benefactors know that this transpires?” I asked. “Or do they . . . well, have they expected that their donations remain with the museum?”
I had not invited trouble. This time, I’d been asked.
Still, I felt Mr. Clarkson’s forewarning look.
“Our generous benefactors expect that we, the experts, will best know what to do with their donations,” Mr. Denholm soothed. “And they trust us to do so. Unquestioningly. I exchanged something better for something lesser, which is in the best interests of the museum, is it not?”
Mr. Clarkson’s face remained animated.
I nodded lightly—though I doubted either noticed—and began to walk toward the dining room in search of Charlotte and Mr. Schreiber, who would see me home.
If I were to assign the collection to the South Kensington, could some of the best Lydney treasures be diverted into private hands? Smothered in a forgotten attic at the museum itself? And yet, if I gave it all to Harry, there was no guarantee that he would not break up the collection and sell it after it became his. Once ownership was assigned, the new owner was free to do what he wished with it.
I was approached by many during the course of the evening, all of whom made me feel most welcome. Charlotte came up to me. Had she heard about my difficulties with Lord Parham? If she had, she did not say so.
Charlotte looked at those who had been paying court to me. “They are bees to the pollen, Miss Sheffield,” she said, gesturing to a pretty ornament of a bee landing on a flower, nearby. “Bees to pollen.”
“And yet,” I replied, “once the pollen is yielded, there is no guarantee that the bees will pay court. Bees, after all, move on once satiated.”
She smiled. “Wisely put.”
During the carriage ride home, we talked about her new ambitions to transition from a personal to a professional collector, and how heartening I found that. “I desire a similar arrangement for myself,” I said.
Her husband took her hand, and she teased, “In a marriage or a collecting partnership?”
“Both, I hope,” I said. “But if not . . . perhaps alone?”
She dropped her husband’s hand and laid her hand on my arm. “My dear. That is not yet possible. You do realize that whilst I may acquire and purchase, accept commissions and trades and all manner of other engagements, the payments must all be remitted to Mr. Schreiber. You cannot run Sheffield Brothers on your own. Now, that fine Mr. Clarkson has quite a keen eye, and he’s been very busy tending to all the right people.”
Indeed, he had been. I’d seen that for myself. He was very good indeed at valuing and solicitous to my uncle and Orchie and me. He’d tended to our business as if it were his own. But as I closed my eyes and envisioned my future, I saw the rugged face of a man with earned care lines, smiling, as always, at me.
CHAPTER
Sixteen
The following week, Mr. Clarkson and I were in the workshop when the morning post arrived. I shuffled through the letters, holding my breath lest more creditors arise like ghouls from an autumn swamp. I turned over a thick, official-looking correspondence.
I turned. “Mr. Clarkson, there is a letter for you here.” He did not normally receive mail at Sheffield Brothers.
He looked surprised but took the envelope from me and returned to his desk. I turned back to our post and noticed there was a letter from our landlord reminding me that not only was December’s rent due very shortly, but a portion of the amount we needed to make up was quickly coming due.
I hadn’t forgotten. The coal bill was due too. I would review the accounts shortly and ascertain if we had enough to cover them all; with the sale of the jewelry, I hoped that we did.
“Miss Sheffield!” Clarkson stood and waved the letter in the air like a victory flag. “It’s a letter suggesting I apply for membership to the Burlington Fine Arts Club!”
Relief flooded through me. “I’m delighted. I’m delighted!”
He read the letter. “Your name was not mentioned. Could someone have sent you an encouraging note?”
I shuffled through the post again; there was not much there. “No.”
“Perhaps tomorrow,” he replied, a little more subdued. “I’m certain we’ll both be invited. Or . . . you could just apply?”
“Only once I’m certain I’d be accepted,” I said.
He nodded, but uncertainly.
Saturday evening at dinner, Mr. Clarkson shared his good news with Uncle Lewis.
“Eleanor?” my uncle asked me.
“Not yet,” I said quietly. “Or perhaps not at all.”
“That bad business with Parham,” he muttered. “I told you it was fatal.”
“Thank you for your encouraging words.”
“People are afraid to go against the powerful. You need a protector.”
I said nothing. No one powerful seemed to be willing to stand up to Lord Parham for me. I did not have a protector.
We finished our meal in silence, and I stood. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”
“But wait,” Orchie said as I was about to leave the dining room. “Something arrived for you in this afternoon’s post.”
The invitation to the Burlington? Perhaps some clerical error had delayed its delivery. My heart raced.
Orchie handed a letter to me, and I left to read it in my room. Once there, I turned up the lamp and could see the distinctive seal on the back of the envelope. It was from Harry. A blend of joy and dread, excitement and fear coursed through me.
Dearest Ellie,
I shall be in London soon and will hold you to your promise to allow me to call whilst I am there. I have some matters to attend to, regarding both my father’s estate and some matters with the horses, of course. I should enjoy seeing you at your convenience. I’ve been invited to a dinner and showing at Dante Rossetti’s house on Cheyne Walk. I know how you enjoy his art. Would you like to attend? Skating, first, a night or two before? I can send round the exact details, if it all appeals.
I await your acceptance.
I miss you.
Yours,
Harry
On Monday, I would reply in the affirmative. Then I would ask him, face-to-face, about Signorina Viero.
Sunday morning, icy misery sluiced from the sky. I wrapped my cloak tightly round me and indulged in a hansom cab.
My uncle was unwell, so I walked alone into the church as the organ played; friends nodded a greeting, and I nodded back. It seemed to me that though the Lord had promised to be with us, ever, always, his Spirit was perhaps concentrated in church, where so many like-minded were gathered in a small space. The amber candles shone through the morning’s darkness, scenting the air with honey from the hives from which the wax had been harvested. Provenance.
I entered the pew where we normally sat and closed the door behind me as the order of service began.
The greeting. A prayer of preparation. A prayer of penitence. I’m sorry that I spend much time allowing myself to be filled with anxiety and wondering what purpose you are working. Your ways are higher than my ways. Please forgive me.
A Scripture reading. The liturgy of the Word.
“This is the Word of the Lord,” the Reverend Hill spoke loudly.
“Thanks be to God,” we responded.
Prayers of intercession. Jeanette and the other women at the prison. Uncle. Orchie. Marguerite. Charlotte. Alice. More difficult: Harry. Mr. Clarkson. Mr. and Mrs. Herberts. Lord Audley. I held my breath before reluctantly moving forward strictly in obedience. Mama. Signorina Viero.
The liturgy of the sacrament. I awaited my turn to stand and move forward to receive Communion. I moved down the aisle and approached the rail. As I knelt beside the others, I held my hands open one over the other in a cruciform to receive the bread.
“The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” He placed the bread in my hands.
“Amen,” I whispered and ate of it.
The chalice bearer next approached. “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”
I guided the chalice toward my lips and sipped. “Amen.”
As I rose to leave, I clearly heard, “I am here.”
I turned to see who had spoken. No one looked back at me.